Displays in schools and communities are an exciting visual way to celebrate children’s book connections and advertise special events for Children’s Book Week. Here are some suggestions that might help you tease out your own ideas in exploring the theme: Books light up our world.

* Use a picture of a lighthouse as your focus, or ask kids to contribute to a collaged lighthouse creation. Use paper light beams to lead to shortlisted book covers. You could also use a lantern, torch or candle.

* Ask children to vote for their favourite books and display the covers on a board or area surrounded by battery-powered christmas or other lights. Book covers could also be designed by kids for 1. books they love, 2. books they would love to see written, 3. books they plan to write themselves someday. These egg carton flower lights would look great around a board or wall.

* Older students could investigate painting with light during the lead up to Children’s Book Week. Their photographs would make an excellent and exciting display, particularly if the challenge was to link light with books somehow. Younger kids could explore interesting ways to photograph their books to illustrate the theme, Books light up our world or use a combination of art and digital photography to show themselves reading e.g. with apps like those in Creative iPad Photo Apps.

* Silhouettes of book characters make an interesting display and guessing game combined. You can also use them as shadow puppets behind a strong light. Here’s a wonderful video of Peter and the Wolf to give you some ideas.

* Ask staff to bring in a photograph of themselves when younger. Next to it have a cover of their favourite book from that earlier time. Covers could be a simple book cover outline able to be hand-drawn and written on. Or you could use Comic Life software and a digital image the way I did in the image below. See if children can work out who pictures and books belong to. Use it as a display or make it into a guessing game with a simple numbered answer sheet. Check out more literacy-related guessing games in my article.

* Bring in an unusual light - an arc lamp, christmas lights, a lava lamp, a chandelier, or suspended lanterns. Make it/them a focus for an enticing book display. Find several unusual lights via Cool Things Australia's Book Week page.

* Battery operated tea lights are inexpensive and wonderful. Add some to a shelf to “light up” a special book display, or use them as part of a larger display. I bought mine at a dollar store for a couple of dollars. You can see similar here at Koch, white in a pack of two. Or check out these four battery LED candles from Cool Things Australia ($14.95).

* String fairy lights across the room and intersperse with Children’s Book Week 2015 work hung up by clothes pegs.

* Interested in a WOW display but short on time? Encourage art teachers and crafty people to take charge of part of it. You could focus on looking at lighting across different time periods and countries. Kids could design “lights” for your display to be suspended in the library or classroom. One example I have seen was a chandelier made of different sized hoops, hung with recycled magazine strips and sparkly things. Another example: dip different coloured yarn in watered down glue and wrap around an inflated balloon. Pop balloon when dry and perhaps insert a battery tea light in each one.

* Challenge kids to a light or lantern design contest and incorporate results as part of your display. Can kids think of a way to incorporate book characters or words into these leaf lanterns from Red Ted Art? Why not have a special night time Book Week activity and incorporate a lantern parade into it? Grab some ideas at the Lismore(NSW)Lantern Parade.

* Find or make cut-out pictures of writers/illustrators and suspend them from ceiling lights. Below each, suspend images of/from their books. NB When using lights in any displays, be mindful always of safety!

* Lots of windows but few walls for display? Borrow these art display ideas from Carle Museum.

* There’s an activity called One Little Word where participants state and illustrate the one word that is special for them right then. Expand on this and ask kids to find one little word to sum up a book. Have them write the book title and one word that sums it up for them on a coloured card lightbulb. Gather the lightbulbs and display them on a wall, or hang them in the library. I have a simple free PDF lined lightbulb template (pictured below) for you at my website that's suitable for writing linked to the "books light up our world theme."

Do you have any great ideas for display linking to the Children’s Book Week 2015 theme that you would like to share? Contact me via the Contact Me gadget, top left under the blog banner, and I will add it to this page!

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